This invention relates to health care delivery in general and more specifically to tele-informatics that supports improved clinical case and clinical practice management in the outpatient setting.
Fundamental economic, legal and organization structure change in the health care industry, combined with the emerging predominance of long-term, non-acute outpatient medical conditions and needs such as chronic illness, rehabilitation and at risk pregnancy, require dramatically improved and cost-effective outpatient health care delivery and clinical practice management. This can only occur through more and better outpatient clinical communications and medical informatics. The proposed tele-informatics invention provides the requisite information technology system to enable health care organizations to accomplish these challenges.
The invention simultaneously provides or supports:
A systemic approach to outpatient care delivery and tele-informatics. PA1 Integrated and comprehensive outpatient care delivery. PA1 Efficient and productive clinical practice management. PA1 Integrated and comprehensive clinical tele-informatics. PA1 Medical specialty transcendence. PA1 Anytime, anywhere care. PA1 Health, versus disease, focused care and therefore proactive instead of reactive care. PA1 Quality outcomes measurement. PA1 Care, care delivery and tele-informatics standards.
A Care Delivery System for Today's Predominant Health Needs
The invention helps health providers deal with the new dominant clinical need in health care--the long term care and support of stable, non-acute outpatients who require monitoring and self-care. Such patients, who traditionally have been the most under-served clinical population, have become the heaviest users of health care resources. Examples include chronic illnesses--hypertension, asthma, diabetes, depression, pain; potentially controllable risk factors--dyslipidemia, diet related, substance abuse, obesity; conditions that require aggressive, integrated remote site monitoring--high risk pregnancy, congestive heart failure, post-operative conditions; conditions that require on-going patient/loved one education; first time pregnancy, infancy care; and rehabilitation needs including spinal cord injury and stroke.
These patients require cost-effective integrated and comprehensive care in their homes and workplaces. At the same time, health providers need a method for managing high volumes of such patients. The proposed invention fills these needs. The system enables care to be vastly improved by providing quality tele-informatics for effective sign and symptom surveillance, adherence monitoring and support, medications management, patient education and reinforcement, holistic patient care, timely responsiveness to changing conditions, care based on varying clinical need over long time periods through clinical case management and therapy integration.
Ideally, the quality of health care should not be affected by location and medical area--for example, hypertension management should be as effective as an invasive procedure. Similarly, the effect of other variables--including the patient's condition, when care is given, to whom care is given, from whom care is received or how long treatment is given--should be null. While efforts have been made to achieve this ideal of care delivery, current health care systems fall far short of these goals. The invention meets these challenges.
A Tele-Informatics System for Clinical Practice Management
Conventional care delivery fails to provide the clinical practice management needs of today's health care providers. Health providers, specifically clinical case managers, need to prioritize their time daily based on clinical need. Health providers work in an intense, high patient volume environment. This requires information technology tools that make work more productive, efficient and predictable. The invention accomplishes these tasks through a component called the Event Manager. For example, the invention organizes and plans a case manager's day based on each patient's condition and need for treatment while taking into consideration the health care needs of all patients of the health care providers that require attention. The system must survey patients signs and symptoms according to health care provider recommendations, and inform health care providers when data is expected, in, or late. Current health care delivery fails to provide health care providers these clinical management tools within a systemic context.
Promoting Quality Tele-Informatics
The invention provides a fully automated communication and informatics environment for the outpatient and their health providers. This promotes substantial improvement in both communications and information quality.
There are also challenges in providing clinical communications and information that meet qualitative and quantitative standards. The challenges include problems of asymmetric information, inert information, old information, information of dubious accuracy, non-standardized information, late or inadequate communications between patient and health provider, and between health providers, and non-usable information. Conventional health care information systems do not meet these clinical communications and information challenges--the invention addresses these needs.